Hi Meeky, you only say that cause you are a web designer and want to build us a new site.

Himm well I am thinking about it let me tell you. But I do really enjoy the forum it has some great stuff in here when you scratch the surface but it would be nice to have a better search tool though. I am experimenting with moving bits into the a new format Friday funnies and park reviews but think it would be a huge task. Maybe if I asked everyone nicely to log on and copy and paste all their threads into this new map based forum do you think they would throw anything at me would it be large .

But seriously I don't think we would be able to improve the format of the forum much, I will likely upgrade the site and add another feature for the more socially inclined but certainly keep the forum also as a semi social, information repository; no that's not what your thinking .

I've tried a few of the portals where you have a lot of add on modules and stuff, but a lot of the time people will just want to use a forum and ignore every other feature on the site so those add on modules can sit dormant. I guess it depends if it's just the admin that maintain/add to it, or if it's user based. We have whole tech sections on our 4wd site where users can submit their tech reports or fix its and keep reminding them that it's their, but after three years and 1500 members, there's about 10 or so stories that have been submitted. They all just prefer to use the forum for the tech stuff.

What's the new add on thing? Got a link to a demo or anything?

I think no matter what happens, even if you wipe the whole site and start fresh with something else, you'd still keep the regulars, and people will come and go, lose a few, gain a few. There's a few threads on here that you could copy across like the park reviews etc, but i think 99% of the content would be junk chat that no one would search or find usefull? For example, you could go and delete/automatically prune all the content that is 21 days old and no one would know, except they may look at their post count and feel they had lost some internet credit

Always interested in new things though so am keen to see what you do. Will you have a count down date and time, so we can grab a beer and sit infront of the computer and keep hitting refresh and see if the website will explode, like Y2K ?

PS. What i meant to say was, make me an admin and give me the ftp passwords and i'll fix it all up for you, we can start with all the subcategories

PPS. oh and don't forget to look at my suggestion for the site, basicly the categories and layout. . http://oz20.com/camping/

Do you really want to be an admin? Well I love the logo design and I like the simplicity but might need a few more fields photo comps etc. But generally good leave it with me I will work on it. Famious last words...What does everyone else think?

Do you really want to be an admin? Well I love the logo design and I like the simplicity but might need a few more fields photo comps etc. But generally good leave it with me I will work on it. Famious last words...What does everyone else think?

I'd be happy to help out, or i can just whinge at you from here

Is this phpBB the lastest version? or is that the main problem at the moment? It sounded like there was an issue with upgrading or something?

The logo thing i put on there is just a basic idea, you might like to create something that could be converted in to stickers and printed on shirts etc, but that can be changed and evlove as you go.

For the photo comps, i would just make a thread called "Photo Competition 2010" within the Photo Gallery and make it a sticky, and then in 2011 you unsticky the 2010 thread and sticky the new thread. If you make a whole category just for a photo comp you end up with 10 threads in it for the whole year.

Looking at the current photo comp section, Qld has had 19 or so threads in 2009, and NSW has 16 or so threads in 2009.

I'd have the one section where all states are together as one in the general Photo Gallery, and people can submit photos they like in to the Photo Competition 2010 thread. I'm not sure how you run the comp at the moment, but the ones we do, we se set a finish date, then the admin choose about 5 photos and the forum members vote in a poll on those 5 photos. You could give the winner something like a $20 - $50 prize.

But yes, there could probably be a couple of other categories with a bit of thought.

Sorry for the late reply have missed this post for some reason. I think something around $10k a year would cover our new costs and allow us a little promotion but obviously to really kick on we would like to pull in a little more for promotional activity etc.

I'm a daily facebook gal and would love to be able to exchange g'day's more easily... it could help support the greater network and help link camper groups more readily. I respect that many members here aren't into FB, so am easy either way. I think if you were to create a FB group, it would not detract from the forum here as it has the one-stop purpose which is what it's all about... from my experience, it would be an add on (I'm a forum owner of transitions triathlon, the largest forum community in Australia for the past 7 years) so I can talk from some experience.

PS I use Google Adwords to generate income to cover site costs of transitions which covers more than enough. It's easy enough to setup and I'm a novice when it comes to html etc

Another fund raiser suggestion is to perhaps create a cap with a logo (get a friend to design something and you can include it in the logo/banner of the forum) and sell them per order. Add on $5 for postage and $15 to help cover site running costs.

You might think of something easier... maybe just a sticker for the back of the 4WD. I would happily pay $20 as a fee for it and as the site grows larger, could help communities recognise & gather at camp sites over time by way of the sticker.

Dettie wrote:maybe just a sticker for the back of the 4WD. I would happily pay $20 as a fee for it and as the site grows larger, could help communities recognise & gather at camp sites over time by way of the sticker.

Dettie

Great idea in theory Dettie but I doubt it would raise much money in the long term. Whilst this forum has huge member numbers overall, the regulars are in numbers much fewer and it would only be the minority of the regulars who would purchase.

gypsylady wrote:Just checked our member numbers...10006 and how many are regulars??

A bit similar to most other organisations and fora. The local seniors has 600 members and we're scratching to get 30 to a Christmas party, never mind 5 to 25 for ordinary social events. I can think of a number of fora and lists I've joined and haven't gone on with making contributions. Some are just received and read, some I don't go back and login to. Just a matter of what grabs you.

It is difficult to say how many regulars we have as over the years many have come and gone and some pop back now and again. I would say maybe 10% (1,000) pop in at least once a month and another 10% once every few months and another 20% that just use the site as a reference so once a year or so.

We use Google's adsence on the home page and that brings a bit of pocket change plus we have had a few sponsors here and there and of course we use to have revenue from the parks but since everyone and their Dog jumped into the free parks listing game that's getting tricky also.

But its not all about the money to be honest its about building a community and growth. So the question is delivering a service that attracts and retains users and this may mean expanding the core topic i.e. camping to incorporate community, kids, parenting... or expanding the functionality of the service to incorporate mapping, chat, media? Who knows maybe a combination but I am not going to do anything drastic and I am happy with how our little community is running we may not have the big numbers but we have quality and very little conflict as I see a lot of this on some forums so we are a happy bunch and I think the Friday Funny is fantastic which I must thank Amanda for starting, Campgrrlz, Gypslady and many other for contributing such fantastic funnies .